A $2.7 million request from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for new computer hardware was approved Thursday by the City Council Finance Committee — but not without some questions about the timing of the ask and why it was on the committee’s agenda at all.
The equipment is needed to update the department’s information technology infrastructure and to prepare for a body camera pilot program that will begin in a few months.
Bill Clement, chief of the office’s Budget and Management Division, said the equipment is needed to “bring the network up to speed” but the money is not in the sheriff’s budget.
Council member Greg Anderson questioned why the request for the additional appropriation from the general fund is an issue only five months after the city’s spending plan for 2016-17 was enacted. The Sheriff’s Office’s budget is about $400 million.
“This should have been included in JSO’s budget. You should be taking care of those computers,” he said.
Clement said the department has been requesting funds for IT upgrades since 2009 — the request was $1.8 million in the 2015-16 budget — but council approved only about $400,000.
The Sheriff’s Office has deferred “a lot of maintenance” due to general fund budget constraints, said city Budget Officer Angela Moyer, and the IT equipment is “the last piece” of deferred maintenance.
Clement also said the department could no longer put off upgrading its computer network after meeting with body camera vendors and determining the requirements to operate a camera system and process the data collected.
Committee Chair Anna Lopez Brosche said the city has to make the investment because “we’ve been talking about body cameras for some time.”
She also pointed out that when the sheriff presented his budget to the committee last year, upgrading the computer system to handle the data that will be generated each day by the cameras was not on the department’s list of four priorities.
“Now we have five,” she said.
How council is able to evaluate the sheriff’s budget request each year was questioned by council member Bill Gulliford.
He pointed out that council approves only the amount requested without a lot of input about specific expenses and priorities.
“We have no control over line items in the JSO budget,” Gulliford said. “Maybe we need to have that discussion.”
The committee also approved an ordinance to amend JSO’s vehicle replacement schedule to allow purchase of 20 Ford Police Interceptor utility vehicles in lieu of 23 Ford Police Interceptor sedans.
Sheriff’s Office Director of Police Services Tony Davis said sedans can’t carry all the equipment the department plans to install in its vehicles and SUVs are “safer and more durable.”
It’s also a question of body mechanics. Davis said 20 officers are taller than 6-feet-5-inches and weigh more than 280 pounds.
“To have them get into the vehicles we currently have is a safety issue,” he said.
The department is transitioning to Ford Taurus sedans as its fleet of Chevrolet Malibus is replaced. Davis predicted there will be more SUVs and fewer sedans on the street in the future.
He said the department, like many other police agencies, is using more SUVs and eventually, the larger vehicles could represent as much as 70 percent of the patrol vehicle fleet.
The IT and vehicle ordinances will be on council’s agenda when it meets at 5 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall.
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